


on your bones i walked this ground

by sweetwatersong



Category: Jurassic Park (Movies), Jurassic World (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Magic, BAMF Claire Dearing, Gen, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-10
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2018-05-01 00:36:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5185514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetwatersong/pseuds/sweetwatersong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a park filled with dinosaurs brought to life by witchcraft, one more creation would normally have little fanfare. But the <i>Indominus rex</i> is the next big attraction, the first of her breed: made from disparate fragments, designed with purpose rather than simply dug up. </p><p>"A new kind of spell for a new kind of thrill," Claire reassures the investors, and does not say <i>and danger</i>.</p><p>[Flashes of a Jurassic World with witches instead of re-wired genetics.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	on your bones i walked this ground

“They’re constructs, Mr. Grady.”

“Maybe, but they’re also alive. They don’t care if it was spells or cells that gave them life; all they know is that they’re living, breathing animals. Witches don’t make damn a difference to them.”

He believes it; she sees it in his eyes from where she stands on his bungalow steps. That conviction is enough to make him fight for them, these magic-bound creatures, these animals whose resurrected bones are drenched in ammonia and runes.

The frightening thing is, she could believe it too.

 

“Why didn’t you put a restraining bind on her?”

Claire hesitates, aware that what she will say will give away more than she has ever wanted Owen Grady to know.

“We couldn’t. Her supporting spells were too… delicate.”

He gives her an incredulous look and she can’t blame him. The spiel they’ve given every park employee dealing with dinosaur constructs is the same: _bring any problem to us and we will solve it_. The hadrosaurs, the triceratops, the stegosauruses, all tweaked by minute additions to or removals of construct spells. But the Indominus…

“What the hell have you made?”

She lifts her chin and stares him down; this will not go unanswered.

“A new dinosaur, Mr. Grady. It’s really quite simple.”

It is not.

 

The Indominus roars, crashing through the jungle at a terrific speed, and they are behind, behind, being left behind in pace and spells alike.

“Can’t you undo it?” Owen demands in the safety of the Control Room as if she hasn’t already asked herself this, as if that option has been tabled until the situation is too far gone. It is too far gone; there is no mistaking that now. Claire shakes her head mutely, hands buried in the gleaming lines of the control spell, and the neon threads writhe around her wrists with loose, waving ends.

“She’s cut herself out,” she says through gritted teeth, identifying each piece of the construct contributed by different animation witches. “Making her took so much, was far more complicated than we imagined-“

Not a single creature, not whole; not as Owen’s raptors are. Like the rest of the park’s creatures they take their form and function from the nature of the skeletons shaping them, each one originating from a single specimen. In comparison the Indominus is a Frankenstein monster made of parts and seams, and she is living up to her creation.

Claire doesn’t need to be watching the rest of the Control Room to know the alarm and fear that spreads at her words but she can’t help it. Not now. Not when twenty ACU, three guards, and two witches are dead from the backlash, from the fallout. From the folly. Her fingers curve and grasp the heartline, the single cast twining the rest together, and for a moment she hesitates. Then the sound of the Indominus’ scream pounds over the speakers, nearly deep enough to roll through her bones, and Claire pulls.

The thorns of the protection clauses cut deep, slicing into her nerves without damaging her flesh, but the cast yields to her hands and draws out like a bowstring, out and out and out – until, moments from breaking, it slips through her grasp to slide back into place.

“We can’t stop her.” Claire knows that adrenaline is covering the agony of the failed dismantling. But her voice is nearly steady, as shocked as it is, and she is almost proud of that. She looks up to meet Masrani’s wide eyes.

“We can’t stop her.”

 

“My nephews are out there.”

“Where?”

“The gyrosphere valley.”

And for once Owen doesn’t ask, doesn’t question. Doesn’t point out that twenty thousand other people need to be rescued too. He turns and sets off through the crowd, working his way through the oblivious park-goers, and Claire follows like her life depends on it.

Hers doesn’t, but Zach and Owen’s –

She cuts off that thought, determined and desperate, and runs in the heels that never falter over flagstone and asphalt and grassy green plains.

 

The Apatosaurus sighs under her hand in a whistling groan that speaks of pain, and weakness, and the deep desire for relief from both. She has to swallow as it struggles to breathe, feels every tremor and exhale of its great body as death continues to consume it.

By all rights a construct like this should have faded away when its integrity became so compromised. It should have long since turned into nothing more than bones and threads, its animation spell vanished and its temporary hold on reality released. But life has anchored this animal to its flesh, to its bones, and Claire has to admit that Owen is right: they are more than walking, wondrous spells.

They are alive.

She meets his eyes and sees that he understands, that he knows. And in a way, that knowledge changes everything.

 

“Look.” Owen points towards the footprints embedded in the mud. Claire has to work not to gasp in relief, fear and grief making her hands shake. “They made it out.”

Her nephews have escaped the Indominus - but they aren’t out of harm’s way yet.

“That’s the wrong way. That’s towards the center of the island.” 

“Then that’s where we’re going.”

They find a waterfall, and wet rocks, and Claire draws out Zach’s battered phone out from the waistband of her skirt.

“What’s that for?”

“We need to find them, don’t we?” She asks, and holds her hand over the cracked screen. It is worth it, it will be worth it, if she can get her sister’s children home. The price asked is not too great for that. “If I can get you a direction – if I can lock in on them – can you get them back safely?”

Owen doesn’t say anything for a long moment. His guarded expression says it all: no one can make any promises about safety now, when the Indominus loose and every stopgap measure they have has failed.

“I’ll try.”

Claire takes a breath, takes hold of the phone, and pulls the shining beacon of her nephew’s connection to his possession into light.

 

“No,” Claire whispers, stunned as she sees where the Indominus is heading. “Oh my god, Owen-“

But there’s nothing that Owen can do at this point. The Indominus is too far for his rifle to be effective and the gunner in the helicopter isn’t hitting close enough to hurt her, let alone bring her down. If she breaches the Aviary, if she breaks those pterosaurs out –

Adrenaline and fear drive Claire when she twists a handful of grass and fallen leaves out of the ground, the dirt-caked roots curling around her fist in powdery caresses. It takes more out of her than she thinks she has, more than she has ever been asked to give – but Claire pushes through the pain and calls the forest to life, draws a living barrier into existence between the Indominus and the Aviary that gouges scales and claws at eyes. The witch’s knees hit the ground moments before she sees the abomination scream and turn aside, turn away, head southwest instead of into paneled glass.

Owen grabs her as she collapses, blood pouring from her parted lips and torn hands, but she lives.

They all do.

It is not enough.

 

“We’re going after her,” Claire tells Owen from the chair she’s huddled in, five minutes before Vic Hoskins makes a case for unleashing his secret weapon. The truth is simple: They can’t allow the Indominus to get to the resort. In the real world InGen’s plan to use the pack as weapons will never work; laws both legal and private have been passed to ban the use of constructs in war long ago. But this isn’t a war against humans, against enemy troops, against countries with flags and international agreements. This is a war against a creature whose very nature doomed her to insanity.

Owen nods, mouth grim, and says the same thing Vic Hoskins does to Masrani.

“We’re going to have to use the raptors.”

 

As the raptors race alongside Owen’s bike, beautiful and fluid and alive, Claire is achingly aware that she will never be able to see them the same way again. Under their scales she can see the outlines of clear and elegant construct spells, gleaming in the way of fireflies and lightning – but over those frameworks, beyond what magic has made, muscle and skin and ambition shape an animal that is a far cry from a simple beast.

The raptors run, and Claire rides the bike beside them, and their hearts beat in the same way.

 

“Claire, tell me that thing’s not part raptor.”

It is. But this much she can stop; this much she can save.

Claire reaches out a gauze-wrapped hand that trembles, grasping the glowing strand of velociraptor that runs through the Indominus’ being, and pulls her fingers into a knotted fist. With her other hand she grabs Owen’s arm.

When she rises, he stands with her.

The raptors look to him, the Indominus to her, and there is still blood caught in the crook of her jaw and the sweat on her hands when Claire meets those ancient, angry eyes.

“No more,” she tells this creation, this creature she condemned with her vanity. When the construct swings her head lower and drops her ivory jaw to roar, only a deafening noise emerges. No language to speak to the pack before her, no sounds to sway their loyalty. 

Owen holds his ground beside Claire, his regard on the raptors he has raised from their first breaths of new life, and whistles in a language of his own.

At that signal the raptors whirl to clear the ACU’s line of sight. Their movement breaks a spell of another kind as the gathered artillery shakes the night, concussive explosions and fire that melt scales and sear flesh, a scorching wind that forces Claire to turn her head away.

The Indominus is too new for life to cling to her frame as the Apatosaurus did, no matter the fury in her heart. When the volley finishes there is nothing but burnt bones and dust.

Claire opens her bandaged hand and lets the ghost of a monster go.

 

“I’m just glad you’re safe. Oh, and Zach, I have your phone…” Claire reaches over to the small bedside table and picks up the shattered smartphone carefully. It’s still caked in mud despite the rough treatment it received, carried across the island in case she needed to find them again. Someone, likely Zara, had saved it after her arrival in the hospital wing. “I’ll replace it.”

“Cool.” There’s a gleam in Zach’s eyes that says the value of having a phone broken during his misadventures might be worth more than a new one. “Thanks, Aunt Claire.”

“Owen told us how you used that to go after us,” Gray chimes in excitedly. His boisterous affection is almost too much in the small room. Somehow, instead of making her exhausted, it lifts her own spirits. “And he even showed us videos from when you went after the Indominus!”

“He did, did he?” Claire lifts her eyes and meets Owen’s amused gaze over Gray’s curly mop of hair. Zara is hovering in the doorway beside him, clearly the worse for having to pin down and take care of her nephews after their return to the resort.

“Yeah, and you were totally _awesome._ And the raptors, Owen explained all about the raptors, and training them, and I thought Jurassic World was cool before!”

“That was some pretty neat witchcraft,” Zach adds with an awkward air of indifference, as though he’s trying to play the compliment off as casual. One of the classic teenage tactics. “None of my studies talk about things like that.”

She lets out a breath at that reminder, at the thought of everything that went gone wrong to get to that point. But her nephews won’t understand; not yet, and perhaps not ever.

“Can you show us around?” Gray’s eagerness is infectious, his hands wrapped around the bedside railing as he leans in. “I want to see everything! The craft labs, the new dinosaurs, the spells-”

“We only have another day left, but maybe we could come back.” Zach fumbles his suggestion when he remembers the state she’s in. “You know, once you’re better.”

“I’m afraid your mom’s not going to be very happy with me,” Claire says ruefully. “She might not want you to come here again.”

“Once she knows how awesome you are, she can’t say no,” Gray insists. “I mean, Aunt Claire, you didn’t make the Indominus break out or anything, and then you tried to save us!”

He’s wrong on that count; she is, ultimately, responsible for the Indominus’ actions. But warmth rushes through her at her nephew’s utter confidence in her, filling the aching and empty places where her witchcraft lies dormant, and Claire smiles over the white sheets at the two boys.

When she looks a little higher, Owen gives her a grin and respectful nod.

The future of the park will have been called into serious question; her own role in the tragedy will undergo intense and likely hostile scrutiny. The vestiges of her power are fluttering at best, abused and used and pushed beyond breaking, and will be slow to recover. There’s no doubt an endless list of things she needs to catch up on after two days unconscious in a hospital bed.

But they’re alive, witch and raptor, human and construct alike; they are cells and spells and still breathing, still standing.

Yes. It’s enough.


End file.
